Poldark's Rock!
It’s not my title. This one was a gift from the early shift among the annual influx on a mid June evening at Holywell Bay, where I’d arranged to meet Mark, an old friend from work. When we first played football together at the college on Wednesday nights, we were both fathers of young children. Now, he’d recently joined me on Grandpa’s row, his daughter having given birth to a very tiny Finley, who’d arrived twelve weeks early. It’s truly amazing what the miracle workers in our National Health Service can do. I’m delighted to report that both mother and child are doing well. The newly appointed grandad is looking happy and relaxed, but then again he’s been retired for nearly six years. When he’s not doting over his tiny grandson, he’s playing golf, or surfing near his home at Newquay, or planning the next big overseas trip to some distant exotic location, a recipe for looking happy. We all look happy and relaxed after long careers in the education sector. If on any given day we’re feeling particularly old and decrepit, we like to mingle with those of our former colleagues who are still chained to the grindstone so they can tell us that we look ten years younger than we did when we were at the pump handle, weighed down by so many years of disillusionment. Even with the pasty Irish complexion I inherited from my own dear old Grandad and regular applications of factor 50 sun block, I have something approaching a ruddy perma-tan these days.
I'd already been here for a number of hours, having fulfilled another social engagement by walking over the headland from Holywell Bay to join my daughter at nearby West Pentire and its host of bright red poppies. With my two year old granddaughter we built sandcastles and sploshed about in the shallows, looking for interesting shells and the occasional green glint of sea glass. They'd left towards the end of the afternoon. Mark was arriving at six, and I reckoned that by half past seven I'd be alone again, armed with the camera bag. It was the first time I'd been here in eighteen months or more, which is crazy when it's so close to home and I almost always leave the place with at least one image that makes me happy. I mean really, what am I thinking of, not coming here at every available opportunity? How far would I need to go before I found another pair of rocks that look as good as this together?
The evening was partly about planning for shots I hoped to capture in the coming winter months. Some of them have been ruled out, while others need a second look. There's one composition in particular that I'm quite excited about, but I'm going to have to be patient and wait for the right time. I think you're going to like it too. At least I hope so because it's a bit of an effort to get there and it’s going to feel very windswept up on those cliffs in December. We’ll return to that one then if all goes well. Once I’d tried a few different subjects, I moved back to the dunes, scurrying from one mound to the next while an envelope of golden light peered through the clouds as if it were deciding whether or not to show its face. Eventually I settled on top of a grassy tuft and promised myself I wouldn’t move again until I was finished. Taken around three quarters of an hour before sunset, this was about as golden as it got, although I carried on shooting into the blue hour. It’s never an easy place to call time on.
At the start of this tale I mentioned the title didn’t I? I suppose I need to come full circle and wrap that one up then. Well as I headed back towards the van for the drive home, I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation as I walked past a family marching towards the beach from the direction of the campsite. Maybe they’d just arrived in Cornwall, because Dad was keen to show his kids the view of “Poldark’s Rock.” My friend who lives in nearby Crantock calls them “The Chicks,” whereas most of us know these twin icons as Carter’s Rocks or Gull Rocks. But thanks to a certain TV drama that returned to our screens a few years ago, it seems that there are people out there who think of Poldark’s Rock when they come to Holywell Bay. Although quite clearly there are two islets covered in gulls, and because I’m an insufferable pedant, these people really need to be telling their children about Poldark’s Rocks. I’m sticking to Carter’s though. But whatever you want to call them, they’re a very compelling reason to come here a bit more often than I do. There’s that winter composition to return to for starters, even if there won’t be any tourists around, waiting to tell me what I should be calling it.
Poldark's Rock!
It’s not my title. This one was a gift from the early shift among the annual influx on a mid June evening at Holywell Bay, where I’d arranged to meet Mark, an old friend from work. When we first played football together at the college on Wednesday nights, we were both fathers of young children. Now, he’d recently joined me on Grandpa’s row, his daughter having given birth to a very tiny Finley, who’d arrived twelve weeks early. It’s truly amazing what the miracle workers in our National Health Service can do. I’m delighted to report that both mother and child are doing well. The newly appointed grandad is looking happy and relaxed, but then again he’s been retired for nearly six years. When he’s not doting over his tiny grandson, he’s playing golf, or surfing near his home at Newquay, or planning the next big overseas trip to some distant exotic location, a recipe for looking happy. We all look happy and relaxed after long careers in the education sector. If on any given day we’re feeling particularly old and decrepit, we like to mingle with those of our former colleagues who are still chained to the grindstone so they can tell us that we look ten years younger than we did when we were at the pump handle, weighed down by so many years of disillusionment. Even with the pasty Irish complexion I inherited from my own dear old Grandad and regular applications of factor 50 sun block, I have something approaching a ruddy perma-tan these days.
I'd already been here for a number of hours, having fulfilled another social engagement by walking over the headland from Holywell Bay to join my daughter at nearby West Pentire and its host of bright red poppies. With my two year old granddaughter we built sandcastles and sploshed about in the shallows, looking for interesting shells and the occasional green glint of sea glass. They'd left towards the end of the afternoon. Mark was arriving at six, and I reckoned that by half past seven I'd be alone again, armed with the camera bag. It was the first time I'd been here in eighteen months or more, which is crazy when it's so close to home and I almost always leave the place with at least one image that makes me happy. I mean really, what am I thinking of, not coming here at every available opportunity? How far would I need to go before I found another pair of rocks that look as good as this together?
The evening was partly about planning for shots I hoped to capture in the coming winter months. Some of them have been ruled out, while others need a second look. There's one composition in particular that I'm quite excited about, but I'm going to have to be patient and wait for the right time. I think you're going to like it too. At least I hope so because it's a bit of an effort to get there and it’s going to feel very windswept up on those cliffs in December. We’ll return to that one then if all goes well. Once I’d tried a few different subjects, I moved back to the dunes, scurrying from one mound to the next while an envelope of golden light peered through the clouds as if it were deciding whether or not to show its face. Eventually I settled on top of a grassy tuft and promised myself I wouldn’t move again until I was finished. Taken around three quarters of an hour before sunset, this was about as golden as it got, although I carried on shooting into the blue hour. It’s never an easy place to call time on.
At the start of this tale I mentioned the title didn’t I? I suppose I need to come full circle and wrap that one up then. Well as I headed back towards the van for the drive home, I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation as I walked past a family marching towards the beach from the direction of the campsite. Maybe they’d just arrived in Cornwall, because Dad was keen to show his kids the view of “Poldark’s Rock.” My friend who lives in nearby Crantock calls them “The Chicks,” whereas most of us know these twin icons as Carter’s Rocks or Gull Rocks. But thanks to a certain TV drama that returned to our screens a few years ago, it seems that there are people out there who think of Poldark’s Rock when they come to Holywell Bay. Although quite clearly there are two islets covered in gulls, and because I’m an insufferable pedant, these people really need to be telling their children about Poldark’s Rocks. I’m sticking to Carter’s though. But whatever you want to call them, they’re a very compelling reason to come here a bit more often than I do. There’s that winter composition to return to for starters, even if there won’t be any tourists around, waiting to tell me what I should be calling it.